Category: Observations

Narcissism – The I’s Have It

Who are you loving today?

Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.

The term narcissism means love of oneself, and refers to the set of character traits concerned with self-admiration, self-centeredness and self-regard. The name was chosen by Sigmund Freud, from the Greek myth of Narcissus, who was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Even George Carlin had something to say on narcissism.

Narcissism isn’t just a combination of monumental self-esteem and rudeness. Narcissists desperately need other people to validate their own worth. A narcisist’s self-worth is based upon being admired by others. Many flaming narcissists are despicable jerks, dislike by many, but also admired for their business savvy, charisma, wealth, looks, etc. It’s the admiration that counts not being liked or disliked.

The term narcissist usually conjures up an image of a self-centered, selfish person. Narcissists avoid personal accountability, it’s always the other person’s fault.

From the perspective of Being, True Identity, or the Essential Self – we’re all narcissists. Being disconnected from what is real within us, we live our lives based upon images of self and not the actual ontological experience of self.

Fundamental narcissism, the specific and most central manifestation of the disconnection from the essential core of the self, the Presence of being, underlies all other forms of narcissism. Pathological narcissism is a distortion or an exaggeration of fundamental narcissism. Fundamental narcissism is an intrinsic property of the ego-self, which is the self as experienced in the dimension of conventional experience. – A.H. Almaas – The Point of Existence

Self-help books and personal development gurus speak to the value of self-love. Let’s not confuse this with narcissistic tendencies. Perhaps it would be better to encourage self-kindness and self-acceptance – which is really all all about disengaging the superego so we can actually explore our experience in an open manner without beating ourselves up all the time.

If we accept the fact that psychological development includes a certain amount of baggage like narcissism, racism and enough defenses to populate the Pentagon, it actually opens the door to fruitful exploration and the possibility of encountering what’s real.

Of course, we can always Love New York

[ad#post468]

October 12
Platonic Forms – Platonic Love

What did Plato refer to when he used the word “form”?

Reality. If Plato is right, we are not entitled to think of reality in the conventional commonsense way, that is, to assume that that which is sensible is most real. That which really exists is to be apprehended only through thinking–by constructing and testing theories. Sensible objects could not possibly be real; they could at best be “copies” or “images” (as Plato calls them) of underlying realities which can be thought about but which cannot be perceived. In short, what we usually call “the real world” is not that at all, but is rather just a world of appearance or seeming. Only the Forms really exist, for they are the “causes” (in the sense of archetypal standards) of whatever intelligible properties are discernible in those sensible things which seem to be most real. If we don’t know what beauty, or equality, or justice is ideally, how can we recognize particular instances of these? – James Dye

For Plato’s Forms are not mental entities, nor even mind-dependent. They are independently existing entities whose existence and nature are graspable only by the mind, even though they do not depend on being so grasped in order to exist. And mind refers to the “nous,” the higher mind, not our every day conceptualizing mind.

Each of the aspects of Essence is a Platonic form, eternally and primordially itself. Love is always and eternally love, so is peace, so is joy, so is intelligence, and so on. Each cannot be anything else, cannot evolve and cannot devolve. It cannot be contaminated and cannot be improved upon. Each aspect is aware of itself, and only of itself. It is the presence of a particular quality, and only this quality. It is a pure consciousness, a consciousness aware of its presence, but its knowledge is different from that of the soul. The soul can be aware of herself as pure consciousness, and then she is like essence, for she is then essence. The soul, however, can know herself as any of the aspects of essence, for all of these aspects are elements of her potential. – A.H. Almaas – Inner Journey Home

Platonic Love

Platonic love is mostly understood to be a pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between persons of opposite sex, unmixed with carnal desires, and regarding the mind only and its excellences.

Love, though, is a Platonic form, so Platonic Love could also refer to the undelying ground of love despite its appearance or manifestation. Platonic love could be how we experience the Platonic form of love when love is not tied to the instincts.

[ad#post468]

September 29
Belittling Whittling

They live among us and seem to be breeding faster than a warren of rabbits on amphetamines. Chip, chip, chip…

They spend their days whittling others down. They are the belittlers, the whittlers of others’ self-esteem. Whether their actions are conscious or unconscious, these distorted souls often display a self-righteous attitude to justify their violence.

How do we handle judgmental, critical people who seem stuck in a pattern of behavior so narrow that relating to others is reduced to an endless stream of put-downs and objections?

We could handle it the way another mindless group of ignoramuses always offers up as a solution to complex issues – “Nuke ‘em all and let God sort it out.”

We could try reasoning with the assassins of self-esteem, but this type of ingrained behavior is usually indicative of minds too shallow to reflect on the possibility of personal improvement opportunities on their end.

The only course of action that holds any hope is for victims of character violence to explore the depths of their own psyche to ferret out the unconscious material that gets hooked by personal attacks from others.

The focus is the dignity of the soul, the nobility of being, the preciousness of life.

[ad#post468]

September 22
Non-Doing is Brewing

How often do events and daily drama trap us in reactivity?

Reactivity seems to always engage us in some kind of doing response. In fact, the reactivity itself is a doing. When we react, we’re always taking the world and ourselves to be something other than they are – and this is a subtle form of doing. Of course, I am defining reactivity here as mental and emotional response.

This type of reactive state results in a form of mental grinding and emotional juicing that is fundamentally a form of suffering.

In contrast to all of this doing drama is a way of being that centers around non-doing. Grokking the concept of non-doing can be difficult as conceptualizing is a form of doing and our whole lives have engaged us in doing. Doing to understand, doing to experience, doing to get, doing to survive – the doing list is endless.

In approaching the practices of non-doing, we usually begin by making the non-doing practice a doing – it’s difficult and challenging to not do.

Non-doing is like a form of brewing – we sit and don’t follow any thought, feeling or sensation. We rest in presence and awareness.

Making tea involves brewing and it’s easy to apply an analogy here. When we sit in non-doing, abiding in presence and awareness, our consciousness begins to naturally move more into the foreground. Our presence deepens. Our awareness sharpens. Consciousness strengthens.

Perhaps our souls are really tea bags looking for a good pot of hot water!

[ad#post468]

September 21
Quintessence – Essence of the Essence

I just returned from a 10–day retreat with A.H. Almaas. The retreat was held at Asilomar near Monterey, California.

The focus of the retreat was Quintessence which Almaas refers to as the Essence of the Essence. In his book, Brilliancy: The Essence of Intelligence, he refers to brilliancy as the essence of the essence.

I asked Almaas about this and he replied that this was an example of the evolution of his teaching – The Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. When he became aware of brilliancy as an essential quality, he saw that it contained all the other essential qualities within it in a unique way. He started referring to brilliancy at times as the essence of the essence to reflect this capacity of brilliancy.

Later, when he discovered the Quintessence, he started to refer to it as the essence of the essence. He no longer refers to brilliancy as the essence of the essence.

So, brilliancy can be viewed, in part, as the essence of all essential qualities, but the quintessence is fundamentally the essence of the essence.

Which probably raises the question for you – what is the quintessence?

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence
Date: 15th century

1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies 2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form

More on that later.

[ad#post468]

September 3
Knowing, Knowledge & Understanding

I have a friend who teaches psychology. Let’s call him Dr. since he has a Ph.D. in psychology. The Dr. is an okay guy. Nice enough, friendly and a little quirky. He’s a hybrid of Bart Simpson and Alfalfa.

The Dr. is a good illustration for knowing vs. knowing; knowledge vs. knowledge; and understanding vs. understanding.

Let me explain –

The Dr. has an in-depth knowledge of psychology, he knows a lot about it, he understands it enough to teach it. But the Dr.’s knowledge, knowing and understanding is mostly mental or intellectual. He relates to his emotions from an intellectual orientation.

The fact that he relates to them says a lot about the situation. He doesn’t live them or embody them. He understands them intellectually. The richness of knowing them intimately is missing from his experience. They are not integrated into his experience in a way that deepens his lived sense of the human experience.

His understanding of the human psyche is also limited by his intellectual position. He knows all the buzz words, but doesn’t feel a personal curiosity or challenge around exploring the deeper dimensions of the self. He understands things clearly.

The Dr.’s life is a little bit of a mess. He struggles with success and relationships. His knowing, knowledge and understanding of psychology gets in his way. It’s a defense against a significant aspect of the human condition – vulnerability.

He uses his knowing, knowledge and understanding as a means to try and control his life and events around him. A large part of this is trying to control his emotions.

The whole thing is in the way of knowing, knowledge and understanding.

[ad#post468]

July 8